Posts from — June 2010

Turkey has been a bit of an eye-opener for us.  It has always been on my list purely because of Gallipoli but of course there is so much more to it.

Istanbul was fabulous.  What a great city!  It’s vibrant and colourful and kind of European, kind of Middle Eastern.  The people are possibly the friendliest we’ve encountered on our travels.

Instead of hassling us, the shop vendors plyed us with freebies.  From our hostel, we walked past all the al fresco restaurants looking for a reasonable kebab.  Of course, they all met us out front and tried to woo us into their establishment, as we’ve experienced before – only this time it was “try my meatballs” or  “Oh Madame!  You must try our chicken!  It is the best around!”

We almost didn’t have to sit down to eat because we had been given so many pieces of meat and various other bits, we were nearly full!  The restaurant we chose, did give us a delicious lamb meal but then insisted that we try his apple dessert, followed by hot apple tea in those tiny Turkish glass cups – on the house. [Read more →]

Here are some stats for the first six months:-

• Visited 13 countries;
• Stayed in 58 hotels, 11 Youth Hostels, eaten at 147 restaurants/cafes,
  (cooked one meal!!) & had one McDonalds Hotel delivery.
• Visas required – 8;
•  Border crossings – 7;
• Travelled on 10 planes, 21 trains (incl 5 sleeper trains), 25 coaches (incl 2 sleepers), 27 local buses & 33 mini buses;
•  13 ferries,7 water taxis, 6 long tail boats, 2 junk boats, 1 cruise ship, 1 falucca, 1 surfcat & 1 canoe;
• Rode on 20 motor bikes, 4 cyclos, 1 horse & buggy, 2 bamboo rafts & back of a ute 3 times;
• 7 cable cars, 4 skytrains, 3 trams, 1 camel ride and one horse ride;
• Caught about 180 taxi/tuk tuks and rode the metro/tube about 50 times;
• Big sights seen – 3  -   Great Wall, Taj Mahal & the Pyramids;
• Castles, palaces, temples, churches, museums…..Countless!

- Time spent together – 24/7 for 26 weeks!
- Memories – priceless.

One thing Jerusalem is not short on is churches and mosques.  There is a mosque on virtually every block.  When we first came to the Middle East it was kind of cool to hear the call to prayer echo around the city, but we have decided that in Jerusalem it gets a bit much because there are so many mosques and they all sing at the same time in different keys, so it creates an absolute racket.  Add to that the church bells ringing and you have a noise that only God could love!

The noise aside (it’s only 5 times a day after all!) the old city of Jerusalem has a really interesting vibe.  It’s made up of 4 quarters – Jewish, Christian, Muslim & Armenian – all within one square kilometre inside the city walls.  It feels like it’s way bigger than that because there are so many alleys and laneways snaking throughout.  The main thoroughfares are lined with gift & souvenir shops, spices, lollies, religious trinkets, vegetables & kebabs etc etc.

We found a hostel just inside Jaffa Gate in the Christian quarter and wandered the streets for a few days.  Just to wander was great.  We also took a walking tour which took us past all the holy sites and explained a lot about the differences between the religious groups here.  [Read more →]

It turned out that the day we were to go to Jerusalem was a Friday, which is special to both Muslims and Jews and so the border closes at 2.30pm.  We were advised to go as early as possible because of this and so we arrived at 8.30.

The departures office was full of backpacks and kids and Muslim women.  It didn’t take long to realise something was up.  After about half an hour, we discovered that the process to be stamped out of Jordan which normally takes 5 minutes was delayed – their one computer was not working properly and it was now taking about an hour to process one passport.

After about 3 hours, the immigration officers, who up till now had all been sitting around the computer and looking at each other with quizzical looks on their faces, decided that maybe writing the passport details out could be an option and so they started doing that.  An hour later, we were all loaded onto the bus to take us across the border.  We were all a bit worried by now because the Israeli side is supposed to be the hard part and we’d just spent hours on the Basil Fawlty.. sorry… Jordanian side. [Read more →]

We flew from Cairo back to Amman and were met at the airport by a driver from the hotel we had pre-booked.  So easy, it was wonderful!  The hotel was outside of Amman at a place called Madaba which is near the Dead Sea. 

We really enjoyed the small town atmosphere of Madaba, with its yummy Arabic bakeries and shops selling Dead Sea mud and skin care.   We had a divine lamb kebab on our first night – unfortunately though not cheap.  Jordan’s currency is very strong to the Aussie dollar and everything here is crazy expensive – compared to Egypt anyway.

We were told over and over that because there was 6 of us that we couldn’t go anywhere in a normal taxi and that we would have to book a large car and driver, with the accompanying large price.  We decided to go out into the street and hail a taxi until we got one who would go where we wanted to go for a fair price with all of us in the car. 

No problem it turned out.  Off we drove to Mt Nebo from where Moses looked out across the Jordan Valley to Israel, the promised land.  It’s absolutely magnificent country around here.

Our next stop was Bethany – the site of Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist.  Unfortunately, the information we had was old and the kids were not excited about the 3km walk to the site on what was a very hot day, while Paul was not excited about the $60 entry fee!    We weren’t sure what would be at the end of the walk so we decided to pass and head for the Dead Sea. [Read more →]

Getting out of India was just as bizarre as arriving..  Did you know that all passengers arriving in India get sprayed with pesticide?  It’s quite funny because the flight attendants walk up and down the aisles with aerosol cans, presumably to stop you bringing nasty germs into India.. ha ha…

Delhi is a major hub so a lot of flights are en route to somewhere else and leave at crazy hours.  Ours was leaving at 5.30am and so we allowed ourselves plenty of time to get to the airport and left the hotel about 1.30.  Lucky we did because check-in took about 45 minutes – the clerks like to chatter amongst themselves while they’re doing your boarding passes.  They have a grand old time but we were sitting at 6 different locations all over the plane.  Could we sit together?  Oh really – ok, no problem.  I”ll change it for you. 

Only passengers are allowed into the airline terminal and you must show your tickets and passports (plus go through baggage xray) to get in the door.  So we had already had one check; then the check of passports at check in; then you must have another check by a uniformed officer to go through another door; then immigration; then the baggage xray again with yet another check of passports.  At the baggage xray, you also have to have all your hand luggage stamped.  These guys were also having a whale of a time; laughing and hugging people they knew etc etc.

When they announced our flight and we went to board, yet another check of passports by another uniformed officer and also a check that our hand luggage was stamped – what a surprise -we had a couple of bags that didn’t have the stamp.  They made us go all the way back to the clowns at xray and put the bags through again and we had to get one of them to get out his little Colop stamper and make sure this time he actually stamped it.

Meanwhile, the plane is waiting for us to have a bag filled with colouring pencils put through xray!  They don’t care about liquids or laptops but watch out for those colouring pencils carried in an open bag by a 7 year old!!

[Read more →]

Not sure how to summarise our visit to India.  It was definately our most difficult travel so far and we all had days where we discussed paying the airline penalties and flying out early!

The highlights continue to be meeting people – namely visiting the people growing vegetables at Ranakpur and 4 Delhi street kids who will stay in my mind forever.

There is way more to India than just the Taj Mahal and the numerous temples.  If you want a travel challenge, this is the place to visit.

Favourite Place:-

Paul – Ranakpur
Amanda – Rishikesh
Caitlin – Shimla
Georgie – Jaisalmer
Ashlea – Shimla
Michael – Jaisalmer

Favourite thing we did:-

Paul – Visiting people’s homes at Ranakpur
Amanda – Tiger safari
Caitlin – Camel safari
Georgie – Camel safari
Ashlea – Camel safari
Michael – Camel safari

Favourite food:-

Paul – Chicken biryani, Jodhpur
Amanda – Vegetable biryani, on the road to Rishikesh
Caitlin – Happineez butterscotch ice cream, Jaipur
Georgie – Tuna Subway, Shimla
Ashlea – Vegetarian pizza at Pizza Hut, Jaipur
Michael – Nachos at Little Buddha Cafe, Rishikesh

Thing we disliked:-

Paul - The chaos
Amanda – Touts at the Taj Mahal
Caitlin – Old Delhi because “I didn’t feel safe”
Georgie – The shopkeepers
Ashlea – Rubbish everywhere
Michael – Everything was messed up

Our last few days in India were highlighted by more driving – this time up into the Himalayas.  Firstly to the British hill station Shimla, which is built onto the side of the mountain.

The drive up was absolutely terrifying – made our previous mountain drive in Vietnam look postively tame.  Apparently Indian drivers don’t make allowances for one lane mountain roads with no barriers (ie a sheer drop 100’s of feet over the side) and still drive just as fast and crazily as they do in Delhi.  They overtake on blind bends, drive around the crashed trucks (we saw a few) and generally drive like maniacs.  [Read more →]